In recent years, the media industry has expanded its horizons beyond traditional analog technologies. Recorded media programs such as audio, photographs, and even feature films are now being recorded or converted into a variety of different digital encoding formats. For example, digital movies may now be encoded using a variety of different encoding formats such as RealVideo, RealMedia, MPEG, QuickTime and WindowsMedia encoding formats. Likewise, digital audio recordings may be encoded using a variety of different encoding formats such as RealAudio, Liquid Audio and Windows Media encoding formats.
In general, the process of encoding a media program can take a significant amount of time. Often, the time required to encode a recorded media program may be significantly greater than the actual play time of the media program. For example, to encode a two-hour analog VHS tape in MPEG II format can often take four or more hours. Thus, although there is an abundance of different encoding formats for use, the fact that encoding is conventionally performed in a serial manner with each encoding process requiring a significant amount of time and resources to complete, a particular media program will typically be encoded in only a limited number of encoding formats.
For example, to encode the songs that are contained on a CD using the Liquid Audio format, a user is generally required to perform the following steps: (1) capturing the data from the CD into a file; (2) launching the corresponding encoder application; (3) entering the specific encoding parameters that are to used to encode the media program; (4) entering any metadata from the CD (i.e. title, author, etc.) that is to be included in the encoded file; (5) submitting the data file to the encoder; and (6) waiting for the encoding process to complete.
In general, the step of entering the specific encoding parameters for a particular encoding application can be an awkward and tedious task. Often, the encoder application interface provides a user with little or no information as to what affect an encoding parameter may have or how setting a parameter to a particular value will affect the quality of the encoded media program. Moreover, the user interface of each encoding application typically operate on one file at a time. As such, to encode a media program in multiple encoding formats, a user is generally required to create a batch command-line that will include a specific set of encoding parameters for each encoding format. However, the creation of these batch command-lines is both tedious and difficult; thus causing the command-lines to be prone to errors. Therefore, to reduce the need of generating batch command-lines, a user will typically repeat the encoding process several times in order to encode the media program with the appropriate encoding parameters.
In addition, if the user would like the songs to also be encoded using a different encoding format, the user is forced to repeat the steps of (1) launching the corresponding encoder application; (2) entering the specific encoding parameters that are to used to encode the media program; (3) entering any metadata from the CD (i.e. title, author, etc.) that is to be included in the encoded file; (4) submitting the data file to the encoder; and (5) waiting for the encoding process to complete.
Thus, for each encoding format, the user is required to enter the metadata for the media programs and to specify the specific encoding parameters that are to used to encode the media program. Moreover, the user must have access to the encoding applications that are of interest to them and specific knowledge as to the encoding parameter values that should be used to encode the media program for each encoding format.
Based on the foregoing, it is clearly desirable to provide a mechanism that can reduce the amount time and user intervention that is typically required to encode a media program in multiple media formats.
It is also desirable to reduce the amount of duplicate information that an individual is required to supply when encoding media program in multiple encoding formats.
It is further desirable to provide a mechanism that can reduce a users need to understand the significance of the different encoding parameters that are used by the different encoding applications.